On a farm there once lived a number of cockbirds, amongst whom one looked far better than the rest. He was not only bigger, but fatter, as well. His master, the farmer, called him a prize bird.

The prize cockbird was very proud of himself. He was always boasting of his great strength. He would challenge the other birds to battle. In great fear, none would dare fight him.

However, the truth was, that the prize cockbird was far from being what he made himself out to be. He looked bigger, because he walked taller than the others. He looked fatter, because he thrust out his chest and puffed out his feathers. If any other cockbird had cared to fight him, it would have been proved that the prize cockbird was, in fact, a great weakling. The prize cockbird got away with everything, simply because none dared to call his bluff.

One day the farmer invited some of his friends to dinner.

“I want you to roast that prize cockbird for tonight,” he ordered his cook.

The cook went, and soon killed the prize cockbird. As he plucked off its feathers, and began to roast it, he grew more and more amazed. The cockbird looked small and lean, and quite unfit to eat.

“I can hardly believe it,” said the cook to the maid, when she came to take the roasted bird to the dinner table.

“Our master is sure to be angry, said the maid. Wondering what she would tell him.

“You can say that his prize cockbird was nothing but a great boast but alas, a poor roast!” answered the cook, with a laugh.

...﻿ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD
The play, Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller is a tragedy. It is about an American family who live their lives masking their reality, which is filled with tension and instability, with the American dream lifestyle. The father of the household, William Loman, is the driving force behind fantasizing these illusions. Hence, in the play, we are faced with many incidences where false perceptions occur and fall apart in the face of reality. We see evidence of this unmasked false perception in the situation where many, despite his ongoing boasting of being ‘well liked’, laughed at William. Although he made it seem as if he was of major importance in his workplace, the reality was that he was indispensable. Willy was found to be an adulterer dissolving any fantasy of a stable family. Bill Oliver, Willy’s son Biffs’, past employer could not even recognize Biff, after creating the figment that he was well favoured by him. Finally, preceding his death, Willy prided himself on all the people who would show up to his funeral, however, no one but his immediate family and friends attended.
At the start of the play, William comes home exhausted from his job. He confides in his wife, Linda that he no longer feels to take long trips as he usually drives from New York to Boston. To enhance his quality of life and to resolve the problem of his exhaustion, he decides that he would request jobs that require him to stay in New York....

...ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD
Glasses breaking, voices shrieking, papers flying; Abigail huddled up in fear. ‘’You’ll die if you leave, don’t leave else you’ll die; be warned,’’ these were the words reverberating in the ears of Abby; as her peers call her. ‘’Oh! Not again; not this time. Leave me alone. Please,’’ she communicated to the voice through her thoughts but the voice kept on replying, ‘’Never, never. Your heart is here, you belong here.’’
Abigail’s mind was filled with reminiscences of the times she used to have fun without the voice telling her what to do and how to do it. She wished she hadn’t met Xavier - the demon behind her life - who introduced her to doom. She was meandering around the perimeter of the school thinking of how her talent would reach the ends of the earth when she bumped into Trevor. ‘’Oh, I’m so sorry.’’
‘’No, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have been texting while walking.’’ His eyes glistened on her spectacles as he reached for them to give her. ‘’Xavier,’’ he said and she told him her name.
They next day, she was singing in the music room in the school and he was eavesdropping. He started harmonising with her and she turned around in shock. ‘’You know for a nerd, you’ve got a great voice,’’ he said sarcastically.
‘’Oh! A nerd; is that what you think of me?’’
‘’Well, looking back at the day I met you, with those books and glasses; only a nerd goes about the perimeter of the school as if there’s an...

...ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD
Outward appearance can be greatly misleading. Gold is a very valuable metal. It has an attractive glittering appearance too. But it does not mean that everything which glitters like gold should be precious. There are utterly valueless things that look like gold and taking them on their face value is unwise. On the contrary, some of the dull looking things possess immense value. Their appearance is in no way proportionate to the great value they have. This is true of human beings also. A person may be good looking having an attractive character. But he may not possess any real ability or talent. He can even turn out to be unscrupulous too. A man must be judged on the basis of his abilities and not on his external appearance. Many of the truly good and great men are humble. Goodness and perfection do not go with gaudiness. Like shining glass pieces which dazzle and glitter like diamonds the appearance of men can be greatly misleading. Therefore estimation and analysis of people on the basis of mere appearance is an unwise approach.
Never go by the appearance of anything, be it a person or a thing. Simply wanting for it just by the looks of it can lead to great disaster. Most of the time, what we see is not the reality; the outside appearance generally hides all the truth and reality. Though we might say face is the index of the heart, there are so...

...All that glitters is not gold
Ambanis and Mittals are no Buffetts and Gates. But we can’t blame them for the appalling poverty that prevails in India
Now that Durga Puja’s son et lumiere has faded, comment might be permitted on what this annual exercise of expensive competitive showmanship reveals of popular taste. That no doubt explains why no one voices the real charge that should be levelled at the super-rich who should be in the dock not for spending too much but for the waste and crass vulgarity of their spending.
Given its Brahmins and Dalits, India has always been a land of contrasts. It has also always epitomized the concentration of wealth. But no one salivated earlier over how rich the rich were, how they acquired their money or how they spent it. Mr Mukesh Ambani’s 400,000 sq ft mansion is a talking point because it’s news in the West and because the public and private domains are no longer separate.
Their overlapping not only exposes the rich to scrutiny but also distracts attention from the Government’s neglected responsibilities. India lags behind many sub-Saharan countries in almost all the indices of modernity not because of the Ambanis, Mittals, Mallyas and Modis, but because our politicians are on the make and our civil servants are on the take. It’s their job to create systems that enable people to raise their standard of living; it’s not the job of those who have either escaped the rigours of the system or learnt...

...﻿All that glitters is not gold is a well-known saying, meaning that not everything that looks precious or true turns out to be so. This can apply to people, places, or things that promise to be more than they really are. The expression, in various forms, originated in or before the 12th century[1] and may date back to Aesop.[2]
Chaucer gave two early versions in English: "But all thing which that schyneth as the gold / Ne is no gold, as I have herd it told," and "Hyt is not al golde that glareth."
The popular form of the expression is a derivative of a line in William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice, which employs the word "glisters," a 17th-century synonym for "glitters." The line comes from a secondary plot of the play, the puzzle of Portia's boxes (Act II - Scene VI - Prince of Morocco):
All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgement old
Your answer had not been inscroll'd
Fare you well, your suit is cold.
Panning for gold often results in finding pyrite, nicknamed fool's gold, which reflects substantially more light than authentic gold does. Gold in its raw form appears dull and does not glitter.
In pop culture, this phrase shows up...

...thing, its worth can be judged only on using it. In the same way, we can find the true color of a person only by moving with them, though not closely at least getting acquainted with them. Now a days we can see so many imitation jewelry that shine even more than gold.
Any individual can be judged by his deeds and attitude. Many a times, aptitude or fearlessness can be found out to be a fake one. Advertisements are the best way to market any product, but most of the times, they just don't show the reality. But not all of them are like that, but one have to be very careful with such type of advertisements.
The actions of people in today's world are self centered and they just look at the benefits they get out of it. It is better to be careful to start a friendship with those who try to project themselves as your well wishers or friends. It is better to ascertain their motives and actions and a constant vigil need to be kept on them.
One have to understand that all those metals that are shiny and yellow in color need not be gold, they might be painted yellow or just any other yellow metal. So one have be aware of the appearance and judge everything. So it is better to keep in mind "All that glitters is not gold".
Life is something really strange. In life we come across several things and persons that are entirely different from what they look like. Outward shows are generally misleading. Same is the case...

...All that glitters is not gold
2010/12/18
James Campbell
The basis on which good repute in any highly organised industrial community ultimately rests is pecuniary strength; and the means of showing pecuniary strength, and so of gaining or retaining a good name, are leisure and a conspicuous consumption of goods. -- Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, Dover Books, 1994, page 52
ONE of the laments of contemporary political theory is the recognition that modern-day society is increasingly being characterised as a consumer oriented society. Theorists of contemporary democracy rail against the way in which ideas of civic duty, responsibility and care are declining in society.
Increasingly, all that is expected of us is that we consume more. Consumption is, of course, key to economic development. Our modern economies rely on us to consume the products we make and services we provide. Without consumption, our economies and therefore our standard of living would decline.
However, there is an important distinction that should be made between recognising the importance of consumption to a modern economy and reducing the meaning of human existence in present-day society simply to our status as consumers.
Recently as I took a stroll through Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur I visited some of the new shopping malls that have sprouted in the area as part of the ongoing retail development that now is ubiquitous in Malaysia. I must...